Does Nutter Want $45 Billion For Philly?

A City Hall department that reports to Mayor Michael Nutter wants $45 billion to overhaul Philadelphia by 2035 into a green city with open spaces, more mass transit and urban farming.

A draft version of the 216-page Philadelphia 2035 Comprehensive Plan was released on Tuesday by Alan Greenberger, Philadelphia City Planning Commission executive director and deputy mayor for planning and commerce.

Read The Entire Plan

“This is a very exciting first step,” said Greenberger, about the first comprehensive plan drawn up since 1960.

Alan Urek, who is Director of the city's Strategic Planning and Policy Division, told the Web site PlanPhilly his draft plan will cost an estimated $43 billion, which is "not so bad spread out over 25 years."

But according to plan's appendix, the cost is $45.4 billion in 2010 dollars, spent over 25 years, in three stages.

The plan calls for a new mass transit line going to Northeast Philadelphia and the restoration of transit stops in the suburbs phased out by SEPTA decades ago.

The plan doesn't include a plan for getting $45 billion for a city that faces huge financial challenges currently.

But it does include $13 billion in spending on SEPTA and other mass-transit agencies, $11 billion for re-doing Philadelphia's system of streets, $7 billion to trails, waterways and parks, and $1.5 billion for water improvement.

If the comprehensive plan gets approved eventually, it will take years to draw up 18 separate plans for neighborhoods.

The plan creates light industrial areas using green technology, with many in areas that were abandoned factories and decaying buildings left over from the city's heyday. Green sidewalks will also be coming to Philadelphia and many vacant lots will disappear.

It also includes more investment in Philadelphia International Airport and at the Navy Yard complex, and a massive overhaul of public transportation.

The Planning Commission controls Philadelphia's Capital budget, which was $2.5 billion in 2010, with much of the financing done through debt.

Because so much of the Capital budget is based on debt and there are legal restrictions on how much the city can borrow, funding for the Comprehensive Plan would heavily depend on other sources, such as federal and state funds, and private investment.

By The Numbers is a regular MyFoxPhilly feature that looks at key Philadelphia issues behind publicly available numbers and research.
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